Chapter 1
Mark and Claudia were still staring at me when I said it.
“A small punishment? I’ve got a small punishment for you too.”
Neither answered.
Noah trembled inside my overcoat with his face pressed against my chest. His feet were red from the snow. The little wooden airplane he had made for my birthday rested in my other hand, rough around the edges, one wing slightly crooked, a cheap ribbon tied around the middle.
It was the best gift in the room.
Claudia looked at it like it could ruin her life.
That interested me.
“Why were you trying to take this?” I asked.
She recovered first. “Because it’s filthy.”
I looked at the polished wooden body.
“No.”
Mark stepped away from the broken wine trolley and wiped blood from his mouth. “Dad, you’re turning this into something it isn’t.”
I looked at my son.
“Your boy was barefoot in the snow.”
“He was being disciplined.”
“For what?”
Silence.
Noah moved slightly against me.
Then he whispered, “I wasn’t supposed to give it to you.”
Every adult in the entrance hall heard him.
I crouched carefully so I could see his face.
“Why not?”
He looked toward Mark.
That was enough.
“Daddy said Grandpa can’t see what’s inside.”
The room changed.
Mark’s face went still.
Claudia moved first.
“Noah doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
I turned the airplane over.
Something inside shifted.
A faint click.
Not wood.
Metal.
I looked at Mark.
He stopped breathing for half a second.
There was a tiny handmade panel beneath the fuselage, almost invisible beneath the uneven varnish. I pressed it with my thumb.
It opened.
Inside was a brass key.
And a folded strip of paper.
I pulled it free.
Three words were written in shaky adult handwriting.
ASK ABOUT ELLEN.
My wife’s name.
Dead twelve years.
I looked at my son.
Mark went pale.
May you like
And suddenly Claudia throwing a three-year-old into the snow over a cheap birthday gift no longer looked like cruelty alone.
It looked like panic.
